


Common Rue (R. Graveolens)

by ohgodmyeyes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Affection, Angst, Darth Vader Needs a Hug, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Gardening, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Loss, Manipulative Sheev Palpatine, One Shot, Plants, Violence Against Flora, herbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26327689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohgodmyeyes/pseuds/ohgodmyeyes
Summary: Young Darth Vader has a secret pleasure— one in which he takes a great amount of utterly subversive joy.His Master, however, isn’t about to stand for such egregious frivolities.
Relationships: Sheev Palpatine & Darth Vader
Comments: 26
Kudos: 34





	Common Rue (R. Graveolens)

They were pretty, they were green, and they were fragrant. They required care and attention, and the more love they were shown, the more happily they seemed to flourish. Most importantly— perhaps, too, most detrimentally— they were completely and utterly frivolous: Unnecessary; trifling. 

Darth Vader, of course, was entirely aware of the fact that his herb garden was pointless... but that was, perhaps, why he liked it so much.

“There,” he would tell the little plants authoritatively, as he provided them with the water they needed to survive. “You shall live— for a while, at least.”

He kept them in a box; a small-but-deep box, with plenty of rich soil and a clear top filled with holes for the purpose of letting them breathe, even in his absence. They travelled with him in his meditation chamber, typically; the lights illuminating the inside of his tiny refuge were adequate as far as providing them their required nutrients was concerned. Sometimes, though— when he was able; when it felt safe— he liked to expose them to sunlight. Almost any sun would do; any star heating any planet was capable of giving them what they seemed to like best, and Vader was happy to let them have it.

Contrary to his usual demeanour (and to what most others perceived as being his true nature), he loved his tiny herb garden. It might have been rather meagre (he only had space in the box for two or three different varieties at a time), and the plants themselves could never be allowed to grow too large for the vessel containing them, lest someone uncover their existence... but, in spite of all that, they _did_ exist. Besides; they were lovely, and they provided the young man formerly known as Anakin Skywalker with an outlet for the tenderness within himself that not even the searing lava of Mustafar had been able to scorch away.

It hadn’t been long since Mustafar; not very long at all... and despite his bitterness and his rage and his hate; despite his loyalty to his Master and his eagerness to learn the old ways of the Sith, those herbs did something for him. It was something he’d not have been able to put into words; in fact, anyone who asked would likely have lost their head to his blade, such was his reluctance to acknowledge any trace of his former identity within himself.

The herb garden (if it could even be called a ‘garden’) was just for him: One of the very last vestiges of an identity he was purported to have lost along with the rest of his natural limbs, when he had betrayed the last of the people who had once loved and cared for him.

Little did anyone know (it was doubtful that he even registered it himself) that part of who he used to be lived on in his plants. It struggled much as they often did; for air, for food. Since there was no one in whose care he could leave them, they sometimes suffered from neglect; sometimes had to make do without water, or attention.

He always went back to them, though; without fail, he never let them die: Once again, Darth Vader liked his herbs. They reminded him of his mother a little bit; of his wife, too. They were fragile and indomitably strong all at once; beautiful, but determined. Unlike either his mother or his wife, however, they lived solely for him; everything they did, they did at his whim, and he was always in control of their fate. They didn’t move or argue or speak or leave, and so long as they stayed in his chamber whenever he was gone, he never had to leave them either.

For him, they were ideal. They let him release his lingering senses of caring and tenderness, while at the same time allowing him to have complete and utter control over something that was alive, minus the otherwise ever-present influence of his Master. 

“No one can uncover your existence,” he said to them one day, while he held their box upon his lap within the gracious solitude of his meditation chamber. “You are solely for me.” 

The plants didn’t answer; they never answered, but once more, this was part of why he enjoyed them to the extent that he did. Vader knew, of course, that he ought not to be ‘enjoying’ anything at all: To take pleasure in something as benign and trivial as a small garden was antithetical to everything he was learning and doing for the purpose of becoming a fully-fledged Lord of the Sith. 

Still, he wasn’t about to dispense with them; wasn’t going to abandon them, or betray them. They offered him too much for him to want to do that; by planting them in the first place, he had made a commitment to their well-being... and when Darth Vader said he was going to do something, he typically did everything in his power to follow through with his promise, even if he had technically only made said promise to himself. 

So, he held them; held them and spoke to them, until he knew that it was time he rise from his chair. With heavily-concealed reluctance, he replaced his mask overtop his horrifically scarred visage, and ventured back out into reality: A reality over which he had significantly less control than his Master was always leading him to believe. He left the herbs’ box on the warm leather of his seat; no one else ever entered his chamber, and so he knew they were safe there— it was where he always left them, when he had to go.

Little did he know that the poor, tiny creatures for which he cared so covertly were not long for this realm.

“My friend,” hissed a familiar voice, as he stepped heavily from out the chamber housing both his plants and the last of his privacy.

“Master,” he answered, and he dropped immediately to his knee at the sight of Emperor Palpatine. He hadn’t been expecting him to be here; hadn’t even felt him docking the star destroyer on which he was currently stationed. He probably ought to have; however, the Emperor was infinitely clever, and (although he’d never have admitted it) Vader had been almost entirely absorbed in thoughts of his plants.

The surprise was unpleasant— having been distracted was a mistake he would take immense care not to make again.

“Tell me,” Palpatine began, “what it is you’ve been contemplating in my absence.”

“How I might improve my meditative technique,” answered Vader promptly as he rose to his feet, even though it was not the truth.

The elder Sith Lord shook his head. With the tiniest of serpentine smiles, he replied, “We’ve discussed the consequences of dishonesty, have we not? Lies have no place in the relationship between a Master and his apprentice.”

 _No... no, no, no._ “You are correct,” said Vader, in spite of his internal monologue. “They certainly do not.”

“Then why don’t you tell me the truth, friend? You have nothing to fear from me— I only ever want the best for you.” That was as much a lie as what Vader had said about his having been considering the intricacies of Sith meditation; however, the Emperor was in a position of ultimate power, here: He was allowed to lie; allowed to do and say whatever he liked, and he more than knew it. 

Vader’s respiration, ever-obvious, betrayed him. He was anxious, now, and anybody would have known it simply to hear him breathe. Palpatine, of course, was particularly perceptive. 

“It is nothing, Master,” he tried anyway. “A triviality; something better forgotten than acknowledged.” He hoped against hope that would be the end of the discussion; that his Master would accept his response, and simply provide him an assignment, or offer to speak with him about something unrelated to his little green secret. He barely wished to address the feelings his plants inspired in him with even his own self; he certainly had no desire to talk about them with the Emperor.

Palpatine’s expression darkened at his student’s insistent deceit. “Re-open the chamber,” he said coolly. “Let me observe its contents.”

 _No._ Vader hesitated, perhaps attempting to think of a way to direct his Master’s attention away from the inside of his only personal space. When he realized that couldn’t be done, he conceded with great reluctance, “...Of course,” before turning to force apart the pieces comprising the little pod. 

The device hissed as it slowly opened; eventually, its stark-white inner walls were revealed, along with the chair on which Darth Vader was supposed to have been sitting and scrutinizing his own relationship with the Force. His plants were both plainly and tragically visible. Why hadn’t he hidden them? Because they needed the light, of course— the last thing he had wanted was for them to wither or die.

He was only now realizing— far too late— that his foolishness in keeping them to begin with had ultimately sealed their fate.

The Emperor, after taking several seconds to eye the plants with obvious disdain, gave the order. Succinctly and with little emotion, he commanded, “Kill them.”

Vader faced Palpatine once again. “Master, I—”

 _”Kill them,”_ he snarled. “They are vermin, and I want them dead.” He neither expanded upon nor attempted to justify his evaluation of his apprentice’s only source of pleasure. He didn’t have to.

Vader, for his part, knew he did not have the luxury of being obstinate. His Master had saved him; although at times he wished deep down that he hadn’t, it was the Emperor to whom he owed his life— to whom he knew he ought to listen, if he ever hoped to regain even a hint of the contentment he’d once experienced before those dreams had started overtaking his mind. Before everything had fallen apart. 

Who else was going to help him bring peace and order to the galaxy? 

He turned back toward the open chamber. He stared at his ill-fated garden, glad that his expression was perennially invisible beneath his mask. Briefly, he reflected upon the comfort and pleasure he had derived from his project since its inception; after that, he lamented his own stupidity in allowing himself to become enraptured by its growth. 

When he thought about it— _really_ thought about it— he realized that his Master was correct. Keeping these herbs would do him nothing but harm; what right, after all, did a dignified Sith Lord have to express things like tenderness and joy? 

None, of course.

Absolutely none.

Without another word; without a hint of belligerence, he stepped back into the chamber and picked up with his gloved, mechanical hands the only object toward which he had expressed any form of affection since he’d been mutilated. 

_My apologies,_ he thought in the direction of the carefully-cultivated leaves, as he exited the chamber, looked upon his Master’s face, and threw their container to the ground. The plastic lid with the tiny holes popped off of it, and the bottom of it shattered. The rich, nutrient soil scattered all over the highly-polished floor, exposing the root systems of the plants themselves.

Since he knew his Master’s intent was for the garden to be unsalvageable, he used his boot to grind them into the tile; stomped and twisted his foot upon them, as if they were trash, or a particularly invasive species of insect.

He’d always made sure to protect his plants from insects.

Once he was certain that they were all entirely dead, he stopped, and removed his boot from the pile. After taking a moment to glance over the mess, he looked back up at the Emperor and asked, “Is that sufficient, Master?”

The smile having returned to his face, Palpatine answered in a voice indicating his satisfaction, “Yes— that is, indeed, sufficient.” After poking at the remnants of the little garden with his own foot, he added, “Someone will be along to get rid of this shortly. In the meantime, I’d like you to please clean off that boot of yours, and join me in my quarters. We have much to discuss, and little time in which to do so.” 

“Yes, Master,” said Darth Vader, and after subserviently lowering his head in his saviour’s direction, he turned hastily and went off to have the dirt removed from his boot.

He was immensely grateful to the Emperor for once again combating his folly.

**Author's Note:**

> That probably wasn’t what you were after when you went looking for Darth Vader fics, but that’s okay. I’m still glad I wrote it down. Thank you for getting to the end of it.
> 
> The title, of course, is in reference both to an herb and the concept of remorse. The plant doesn’t grow where I live, but it’s also known as ‘herb-of-grace’. It isn’t used much for cooking anymore, as it can cause gastric pain, and it may even blister skin to which its extract is exposed. Very Vader-like, right? Anyhow, he certainly isn’t cooking with these plants, seeing as how he mostly eats vita-paste at this point.


End file.
